I had a friend come over with her newborn and she commented on my house.
I had picked up toys and such before she arrived and even vacuumed the
living room where we would be sitting. I made sure the bathroom was fit for a non-resident user and I got the kitchen in order. This naturally gave her the
impression that she was witnessing life as usual. As
soon as she commented on the tidiness of it all, I instantly wanted to
undo it. I'll be honest. I do love compliments of this nature. It is
sheer delight to hear someone notice these things. But
as soon as she said the words, I thought, "Wow if there's one thing I
don't want a new mom to think it's that it's possible to keep the house
tidy at all times." And if you know me then you know I can make a good
mess. (Just come by during my cookie decorating process to see the
epitome of my messy potential).
Not long after my friend left, the house was, of
course, back to its old state. Toys everywhere and a pile of clean
laundry dumped in the floor to be folded. Not to mention books everywhere and puzzles resisting assembly. I meant to take a picture and send it to her. It's not that the "real" me is the messy house. It's just not the whole picture. The real me is the clean house and the real me is the house turned upside down. It's all part of life for me. My house is a lot like my personality. It goes from one extreme to another on a regular basis.
To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding, in spite of distances or thoughts expressed--that can make life a garden. -Goethe
Friday, May 25, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Hodge Podge
A list is an acceptable form of blogging every now and then, right? This should probably be divided up into a few posts, but I'm shoveling them out all at once.
1. We had friends over for dinner this past weekend. Three realizations:
--We realized at one point that the left-handed people outnumbered the right handed people. There were six people. Four of us were left-handed.
--We also realized at one point that the homeschoolers were in the majority. Out of the six of us, I was the only one who had never been homeschooled. Everyone else had either done homeschool, private school, public school, or a combination. Only me and one other guy had done the exact same thing for all 13 years. He was homeschooled and I was in private school.
--I realized I should have picked everyone's brain about schooling since I had all major forms of schooling represented. Public, private, and homeschool. O well, maybe next time.
2. I made our moms pink vanilla sugar for Mother's Day. I have never bought actual vanilla beans before! Did you know there are over 25,000 little seeds in each bean? I scraped out every last one. Here's how I made the sugar and tinted it pink. Click HERE. I do recommend buying your beans at the Williams-Sonoma outlet. They are often on sale. You get two beans per jar so this is not something you will probably cook with often (unless you like splurging a lot.)
3. The kids are interacting in a whole new way these days and I am beside myself. Little A puts her hand on C's back and says, "Big boy!" and she also likes to give him kisses and hugs a lot. She wears me out for sure, but she is so cute I want to cry! C likes to hold her hand when we are walking into church or in a parking lot. And he is showing more interest in playing with her which is sweet. For awhile there I think he mostly saw her as an interruption.
4. This fourth point is about food, but I have to preface it with sleep talk. So here goes: I haven't slept for more than 5-6 hours in a row since 2010. To be clear, my night may last from 11pm till 7 or 8 the next day, but it's not without interruption. At least one. It's my own fault and I take responsibility. I don't care much for sleep training method books and all that sort of thing. I have all kinds of beliefs about crying it out and I especially encourage breastfeeding moms (if they happen to want my opinion) not to do too much sleep training, especially early on. This is just where I stand on the issue, but I'm not trying to pick a fight about it. I also have found that there's plenty of good in my kids' sleeping habits (they are great nappers, for one) and I'm glad that at least my oldest child sleeps for a solid 11 hours. I know eventually little A will do the same, but she has just been more persistent and never cared for a paci or lovey (besides Mommy). I say all this to say that I'm tired a lot. For awhile I thought maybe I had some sort of illness. There were days when my eyes were glazing over and I was not being very present in my own life because I felt like a zombie. I knew part of it was the interrupted sleep, but deep down I believed more of it was my diet. I was eating sweets. Too many sweets! I believe I was indulging. And not in cookies as you may think. Just chocolate. Any chance I got to eat some kind of chocolate, I took it. So I decided to lay off sweets for awhile and eat them in a very small quantity and less often. I also decided to drink more water because I think fatigue is linked to dehydration. Guess what? It made a significant difference to my energy levels. I wouldn't say I'm "normal" yet, but I'm a far cry from where I was. I think people can function on less sleep than they realize and even a person like me (who LOVES sleep and hiding beneath the covers) can get used to a less cozy sleep schedule. I think it was more about the food I was eating. So if anyone out there feels tired all the time, maybe this can help you too. For what it's worth . . .
1. We had friends over for dinner this past weekend. Three realizations:
--We realized at one point that the left-handed people outnumbered the right handed people. There were six people. Four of us were left-handed.
--We also realized at one point that the homeschoolers were in the majority. Out of the six of us, I was the only one who had never been homeschooled. Everyone else had either done homeschool, private school, public school, or a combination. Only me and one other guy had done the exact same thing for all 13 years. He was homeschooled and I was in private school.
--I realized I should have picked everyone's brain about schooling since I had all major forms of schooling represented. Public, private, and homeschool. O well, maybe next time.
2. I made our moms pink vanilla sugar for Mother's Day. I have never bought actual vanilla beans before! Did you know there are over 25,000 little seeds in each bean? I scraped out every last one. Here's how I made the sugar and tinted it pink. Click HERE. I do recommend buying your beans at the Williams-Sonoma outlet. They are often on sale. You get two beans per jar so this is not something you will probably cook with often (unless you like splurging a lot.)
3. The kids are interacting in a whole new way these days and I am beside myself. Little A puts her hand on C's back and says, "Big boy!" and she also likes to give him kisses and hugs a lot. She wears me out for sure, but she is so cute I want to cry! C likes to hold her hand when we are walking into church or in a parking lot. And he is showing more interest in playing with her which is sweet. For awhile there I think he mostly saw her as an interruption.
4. This fourth point is about food, but I have to preface it with sleep talk. So here goes: I haven't slept for more than 5-6 hours in a row since 2010. To be clear, my night may last from 11pm till 7 or 8 the next day, but it's not without interruption. At least one. It's my own fault and I take responsibility. I don't care much for sleep training method books and all that sort of thing. I have all kinds of beliefs about crying it out and I especially encourage breastfeeding moms (if they happen to want my opinion) not to do too much sleep training, especially early on. This is just where I stand on the issue, but I'm not trying to pick a fight about it. I also have found that there's plenty of good in my kids' sleeping habits (they are great nappers, for one) and I'm glad that at least my oldest child sleeps for a solid 11 hours. I know eventually little A will do the same, but she has just been more persistent and never cared for a paci or lovey (besides Mommy). I say all this to say that I'm tired a lot. For awhile I thought maybe I had some sort of illness. There were days when my eyes were glazing over and I was not being very present in my own life because I felt like a zombie. I knew part of it was the interrupted sleep, but deep down I believed more of it was my diet. I was eating sweets. Too many sweets! I believe I was indulging. And not in cookies as you may think. Just chocolate. Any chance I got to eat some kind of chocolate, I took it. So I decided to lay off sweets for awhile and eat them in a very small quantity and less often. I also decided to drink more water because I think fatigue is linked to dehydration. Guess what? It made a significant difference to my energy levels. I wouldn't say I'm "normal" yet, but I'm a far cry from where I was. I think people can function on less sleep than they realize and even a person like me (who LOVES sleep and hiding beneath the covers) can get used to a less cozy sleep schedule. I think it was more about the food I was eating. So if anyone out there feels tired all the time, maybe this can help you too. For what it's worth . . .
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Game On
He wanted to adorn himself this way on our trip to Costco. Well, who am I to deny him his inner 80's fighter? I can hear the music now.
"It's the . . . eye of the tiger it's the thrill of the fight. Risin' up to the challenge of our rival. . ."
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